| Concentrating on three principal texts, treated chronologically, beginning with Heart of Darkness (1899), followed by The Good Soldier (1927), and concluding with Lolita (1955), I seek to demonstrate how three modern novelists, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, and Vladimir Nabokov, represent the struggle to affirm identity through narrative discourse. By focusing on these novels, I discuss some prevalent characteristics of Modernism, particularly how moral issues are placed within a narrative framework employing an unreliable narrator uncertain of the meaning, and even the details of the experience he relates.; The narrator's involvement in the baffling experience affects the narrative he creates: greater participation exacerbates linguistic duplicity. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow is primarily a follower of Kurtz's trail, a witness who observes and partially mimics the experience of the main agent of disaster and who strives to present a forthright tale. In The Good Soldier, Dowell is more intimately involved than Marlow in the tragic developments, yet Dowell is primarily unaware of the proceedings around him and even of his own role and deeply buried ambitions; his narration is less clear and candid. In Lolita, Humbert is responsible for much of what transpires; still, like his counterparts, Humbert is mystified and deceived by others, including Lolita, Quilty, and McFate, and composes an insincere text intended to comfort him.; Each narrator is limited in participation, control and comprehension of circumstances and each attempts to mask and to overcome his limitations. Reflecting the authors' genius in presenting bewilderment through new narrative techniques, these narrators' insist upon their importance in the past scheme of things while shifting the emphasis to their narrative accomplishment, the artistic sensitivity and skill with which they continually attempt to impress and occasionally distract the reader. The interest in narrative performance becomes consuming; the narrators become obsessed with verbal configurations and reading texts, but find that they are unable to satisfactorily voice the mysteries enveloping them. The results are three narratives characterized by what we now identify as hallmarks of Modernism: efforts to resolve bewilderment and isolation through narrative stratagems. |
